May 22nd – A long time since I featured Jockey Meadows here – the Site of Special Scientific Interest lying on wetland between Walsall Wood and Shelfield.
Usually the last bit of local landscape to green up, it’s looking splendidly fresh and verdant in the sun, possibly because the annual occupancy by a heard of meadow-maintaining cows haven’t appeared yet.
I notice someone’s come in here with a tractor recently though, which is interesting.
A beautiful and very important place!
July 22nd – Lots of this gorgeous purple flower about at the moment, chiefly in ditches and damp areas. At first I thought it was an orchid of some sort, but thanks to help from twitter, it turns out to be purple loosestrife.
It’s gorgeous, and there’s lots of it this year, complimenting the foxgloves, buddleia and willow herb beautifully.
Purple really is the colour of high summer…
January 6th – An early, grey commute was brightened by something I’d never seen before, a heron in Jockey Meadows. A fair way from the canal or Ryders Mere, it must either have been resting or hunting in the water meadows here.
The photos are awful, and very long distance, but I’ve never seen a heron here before.
It set me up for the day.
April 19th – I hadn’t wandered over Jockey Meadows for years – I must do it again. Leaving the bike in the hedge, I waded through the water meadow towards the deer. The land here is saturated, and appears very fertile. Globeflowers are in bloom, and frog, toad and newt spawn are evident in the shallow water (frog spawn is in clumps, toad in ribbons. Newt spawn is laid in small pockets on the stems of underwater plants or in the curls of leaves and fronds). There is a healthy greenness here. I can see why the deer love it. This is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and I can see why.
May 19th – The Swag, as it’s commonly known locally, is part of the wetland band that occupies the hollow between Shire Oak Hill and Pelsall. A wet area for centuries, it stretches for miles, from the common to the north, across Clayhanger Marsh, Jockey Meadows and Stubbers Green, into the Goscote Valley. Pictured looking north from the old railway line parallel to Pelsall Road, it’s easy to see the very old spoil heaps from bell pitting in the area two centuries ago.
Nowadays, they are a peaceful, post industrial wildlife haven, as is the trackbed I stand on to capture this odd little sunset. Turning around, I see an old dog fox trotting off into the distance. This is both his territory and mine, and we are familiars. No doubt having watched my approach, he’s content that everything is in order and is away on his rounds.
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